It is well known in the art that humic acid-based preparations can have a variety of beneficial properties and uses in agriculture (e.g. fertilizers, additives, etc.), waste water treatment and waste detoxification. However, these preparations also have a number of limitations. These preparations are often labor and energy intensive to produce, costly, and often result in products that are difficult to handle.
One such preparation, used as a sorbent for binding ions of heavy metals, is difficult to produce, comprising several steps, including extracting, neutralizing, filtering, washing, drying, and calcining. The large number of complex steps make the resulting sorbent product time consuming and expensive to produce.
Another such preparation requires the starting humic acid containing mixture to be dried or dehydrated to a moisture content from 6% to 12%. However, a moisture content this low results in the humic acids, or derivatives thereof, to be placed into a dormant or inactive state.
Another known preparation of concentrated humic product requires preparation by an electrolysis method. This method makes controlling the exact composition of the product difficult. Further, the resulting humic acids-based product is of a gelatinous consistency, making it difficult to handle for storage, transportation, and application.
Another known method of production of a humic mineral agent uses a method that requires the use of a large amount of water to hydrate the humic acids-containing starting material. This hydration results in a product that is the consistency of a viscous flowing liquid which is then converted into a plastic media. Such a process is energy intensive. Further, the adhesiveness of the product resulting from such a method makes bagging the product very difficult and labor intensive. The adhesiveness of the product also makes its use in fertilizer or in soil treatments difficult.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a process that produces a dry, granular, humic-mineral agent that does not have the limitations of adhesiveness. Further, there exists a need in the art for a process that minimizes the problems of intense energy use, high labor costs, and difficulty in handling of prior art processes.